Kazakhstan Cuts State Jobs Amid Economic Crisis
Published on: Thursday 02 April 2009
The Kazakh government is cutting jobs at state companies and imposing a hiring freeze until the end of the year as it tries to limit spending to compensate for the economic downturn. Prime Minister Karim Masimov said on April 1 that the state holding company Samruk-Kazyna would reduce its workforce by half and cut pay by 30 percent. Anna Walker, an expert on Central Asia's economies at the Economics Intelligence Unit in London, discussed the significance of these steps with RFE/RL.
